This is the year when the Pocket PC will no longer be a promise

A PC in the palm of your hand, this is a promise that has been singing for some years. It was from HDMI Dongle, a concept apparently simple, when fiction became reality. I say apparently simple because behind the invention several progress working together hide.

On the one hand, improved speed and quality of transmission in HDMI 2.0 connections. On the other, the flowering of modular technology. Most of these dongles reproduce content via streaming, but need the power of our smartphone to play. In many cases, your ARM processor is no more than a transmitter for encoding and avoids bottlenecks.

CC was the first stone: everyone wanted one and did not know where to buy it .Since then, thanks to the assemblers did not have to pay licensing by the Android operating system, the market is filled with copies to very low cost versions, some better and some worse, but they have paved the way for new pocket PC under the same philosophy: play entertainment content, and routine office tasks, leaving aside the “specialization”. And why there has been this trend of all-in-one to the phablet and PC the size of a USB memory? Simple: mobility, ability to manage our data in the cloud, sync at all times the progress of our work.

Image Source: Google Image

The revolution from within

Anyone interested in technology will have noticed that news in the PC world: the modular units are the way to go. Presented at Computex, a few days ago we let record of how ASUS ROG Avalon gambled on new modular system by computer.

Current PC is modular, in fact, already riding different components within a housing container, we are not talking about welding parts to the plate, but what ASUS proposed is something quite revolutionary: one is solved in one fell swoop categories price, since each user decides the extent to boost their system. And, secondly, that irrational fear of computers is eliminated custom, because each piece is a block with an unmistakable connection with a scheme simplified installation, without cables or projections that give rise to mistakes.

The mini-palmtops go a step further mounted small processors with 1 or 2 GB of RAM, SSD storage with essential applications and optimized operating system, using, as we said, the potential of the current Smart TV, getting smarter. The monitor remains a key element in the equation, as it can be a mouse or wireless keyboard, but the muscle, the essence of the PC, is contained in a little larger than a keychain small rectangle.

On the other hand we must look at the cycles of manufacture and distribution technology. If something is demonstrating the console market with new models of Xbox One and PlayStation 4 on the way, it is that the chips and all the circuitry lives a permanent expansion of power and memory decline , and we cannot be stuck in lengthy cycles production thus limiting the density of data or the own processor power.

A full trend possibilities

If the doomsayers out us would say that the PC has been dead for several decades. The reality is quite different: the PC survives any rotation script on the market, although it has undergone a transformation in formats. Although the desktop PC tower mounted remains a standard, it is increasingly common to find users who only use a small convertible notebook plus the smartphone to perform all tasks, both work and leisure. This trend reflects a need: to be able to move without neglecting the content.

Over the past year the market sticks grew exponentially. The Intel Atom Bay Trail chipset 4 – core standard achieved its position thanks to its small size, and with 2GB of RAM and 32GB SSD and had more than enough. But this 2016 is the year of real change.

Keep in mind that one of these sticks pocket not only allow you to view YouTube or our content network, most are equipped to make any TV a true multimedia center, turning the TV into a digital photo frame or display Cloned PC thanks to smart-share of Miracast- and can use it for office laptop and even as a game console, to install emulators or games from the bazaars of their respective systems.

VivoStick, the Pocket PC ASUS

The Taiwanese Asus presented VivoStick few months ago. His experience in this segment is wide: from the VivoPC or QM1 to VivoMini, the brand has forged a solid path in the PC market on a small scale. VivoStick HDMI stick is a little larger than a marker Edding. With 70 grams and less than 14 cm long, it can be called Pocket PC with all the letters.

This stick mounts an Intel Atom Z8350 processor X5-1, 92 GHz 4 cores, 2GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage space on an SSD. The host operating system is Windows 10 Home in retail version. As for connections, it is above other competitors: includes 2 USB serial ports, one 2.0 and one 3.0, 3.5 mm jack, either headphone or external audio output. As for wireless protocols, including Bluetooth 4.0 and WiFi 802.11 b / g / n, and is compatible with any terminal of the same ecosystem.

So is omitted unnecessary spaces may soil and subtract space muscle system. In its external finishes, as you can see in the photos, the surface is smooth, slightly chrome and ultra-compact, giving a comfortable feeling of stability, strength. As imaginaries, it is fed from the same HDMI connection. And, as it tries to avoid at all costs wires, ASUS 100GB gives new customers through its ASUS WebStorage. If you know the offer storage in the cloud will know that 100GB is above the average of any service.

You really need a pocket-PC at this point?

Well, here I will try to explain it from my personal experience. Spend all day hanging phone is busy, always just out of battery in the most unexpected moment. People that we are forced to travel quite have in VivoStick an option not to sacrifice our most important data. It can be connected to television in a hotel room and from the WiFi, watch YouTube or access our accounts, either Netflix, Amazon Premium or many other applications that will appear in the store.

Hence, whether you are on holiday or simply a friend’s house and want to show some pictures, video files, presentations, comics or PDF, this stick offers the possibility of immediate and agile. And as you can see in the image below, it can be used as projector, digital signage, even for presentations institute or against customers in a business.

As we said at the beginning, the market for HDMI Dongle is growing. Most models between 80 and 150 dollars, are very energy efficient and allow to set up a makeshift office anywhere where there is a TV with HDMI connection. Amid china shop of the previous generation, Blu-Ray, consoles, old TDT or routers on your network operator, is welcome these new mini-PC that provide solutions in very little space. Along with the mobile application itself, we can only imagine the home automation control -Lights rest of the home, doors, control cameras, etc. The possibilities are endless.